New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game between the Oakland Raiders and the Giants in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, Dec. 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Giants fire head coach and GM

By NY1 News
|
December 4, 2017 @2:31 PM

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The Giants fired head coach Ben McAdoo and GM Jerry Reese on Monday.

In a news conference Monday afternoon, Giants co-owner John Mara said he and co-owner Steve Tisch agreed that wholesale changes needed to be made throughout the organization.

The Giants are 2-10 in 2017 after coming into the season with high expectations following a playoff appearance in 2016. They lost to the Raiders 24-17 in Oakland on Sunday.

Reese was named the GM of the Giants prior to the 2007 season. They won the Super Bowl that season and won it again in the 2011 season, but they have missed the playoffs in five of the past six seasons - including this season, as they have already been eliminated from playoff contention.

McAdoo took over as head coach of the Giants last year after serving as offensive coordinator in 2014 and 2015. He led the Giants to an 11-5 record in 2016.

The firing of McAdoo and Reese comes less than a week after the organization benched quarterback Eli Manning. Manning had started every Giants game at QB since the middle of the 2004 season.

During the news conference, a reporter asked Mara if he was embarrassed by his team's performance this season.

"Of course I'm embarrassed," he said. "2-10, there's no excuse for that, particularly when expectations were so high."

Mara noted that the team was hit was a rash of injuries, but he also stated that the team was 0-5 with a "relatively healthy roster" before "all the wide receivers got hurt." Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall were declared out for the rest of the season after that Week 5 loss.

Steve Spagnuolo, who was the Giants' defensive coordinator, will be the team's head coach on an interim basis. He was the Giants' defensive coordinator during their Super Bowl XLII victory. He returned to that post in 2015 after a stint as head coach of the St. Louis Rams, and stints as an assistant with New Orleans and Baltimore.